


Cold Streets, Warm Sheets

by SeeEmRunning



Series: Heartbreak [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Angst, F/M, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Preseries, Prostitute Sam, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 07:07:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/732828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeeEmRunning/pseuds/SeeEmRunning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam Winchester is thirteen when the motel manager comes knocking, and sixteen when his job gets him into trouble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

**Author's Note:**

> So this story's been kicking at me for a while. Months, in fact. I finally cobbled together an ending - I'm not entirely happy with the end of it, but I couldn't do much more without beating a dead horse.
> 
> Obviously (by the tags), the story involves underage non-con and prostitution. It's not too explicit, but it's definitely explicit enough, and I'm not entirely sure M is a high enough rating. Read with that in mind. Please let me know what you think!
> 
> Chapters' titles are AC/DC songs.

Thirteen-year-old Sam Winchester was doing his math homework on the bed of the crappy motel room his father and older brother had parked him in while they went off on a hunt. He wasn't too sure what they were hunting - some kind of spirit, maybe - but they'd told him they'd be gone for two days. It was nearing sunset on the third day and Sam was trying not to worry.

He was startled out of his thoughts by three rapid knocks on the door. He jumped and grabbed the knife laying beside him on the table; crossing to the door and peering out the eyehole, he felt paranoid when he realized it was only the motel manager. He stuffed the knife at the small of his back, just in case, and opened the door.

"Can I help you?" Sam asked.

"You gotta get out, boy," the manager said.

Sam frowned, confused. "Excuse me?"

"Your daddy only paid for two nights," the manager explained. "Either pay up or get out."

"He'll pay when he gets back," Sam told him with more confidence than he felt.

"Sorry, kid. Prepay only." The manager was looking at him with sympathy and something else, but Sam couldn't figure out what.

"Maybe we can make a trade," Sam suggested. "Do you have anything that needs fixing? I'm good with my hands."

The manager stepped inside and closed the door. "Maybe I do," he said. "What's your name?"

"Sam."

"Sam. Good name. I'm Richard. Where's your daddy, anyway?"

"Out for a little while. He'll be back."

The manager sighed. "I saw him leave three days ago, kid. I'd like to help you out. How about you come down to the office and we call some folks, see if we can get you to stay somewhere with more reliable parental figures -"

"No!" Sam exclaimed hastily. "Dad's fine."

"You're going to have to convince me of that, Sam." The motel manager's entire demeanor had changed, turning from sympathetic to predatory in an instant. "How bad do you want to stay with him?"

All of Sam's instincts were screaming to stab him, or at least to run, but he couldn't do either. Stabbing him would mean disposing of the body and getting out of town before anybody noticed him gone, which wasn't an option. Richard was blocking the only exit, and something about the way the man held himself told Sam he couldn't push him away long enough to reach the door.

Sam must have taken too long to answer because the man stepped up close, right into Sam's personal space, and growled, "Well?"

"What do you want?" Sam asked with more courage than he felt.

Richard smiled. "Suck my dick."

Sam's mind froze. "Wh-what?" he stammered.

"Suck my dick," Richard repeated. "Do it and I'll let you stay the night. Refuse and I'll call the police to come get you. It's your choice, Sam. I'm not going to force you into it."

Sam stared at him, heart hammering in his chest - but in the end, he didn't really have a choice. If Child Protective Services got involved, John would be livid, especially since he was too far away to do anything. Dean would kill him.

"Okay," Sam whispered, looking down.

Richard took a step back and reached out to lift his chin. "Okay what, Sam?" he asked, refusing to let Sam break eye contact.

"I'll suck your dick," Sam said.

"Good!" the manger said. "Now that's settled…" He peeled off his pants and boxers and Sam was looking, for the first time in his young life, at someone else's dick.

Richard clapped his hand on Sam's shoulder and steered him over between the two beds. He sat down on one of them and pushed Sam until he was on his knees. Richard murmured instructions to the boy and made him swallow the cum.

"Good boy," Richard crooned, stroking Sam's hair once. He pulled his pants up and left, slamming the door behind him.

It was at this point Sam raced for the bathroom, dropping to his knees in front of the toilet. His body rejected every ounce of what he had swallowed. When he'd finished retching, he showered and scrubbed himself until he was red from the friction.

Math homework forgotten, he laid down in the bed Richard hadn't sat on, curled into the fetal position, and cried himself to sleep.  
***  
The next day, he went to school as usual. His math teacher got upset with him for not finishing his work, and his other teachers were angry at him for not even starting, but Sam couldn't bring himself to care. In the light of day, he couldn't believe he'd sucked off a man three times his age. It was for a good reason, Sam reminded himself, but that didn't stop the sick feeling of shame that crawled in his belly all day and refused to leave. As ridiculous as he knew it was, he couldn't help feeling that what he'd done was written across his face for the world to see. The shame doubled when he used the absolute last of his money to buy his lunch.

He wanted to dawdle at school or the library, anything to keep him from that damn motel, but the thought that his family could have returned while he was in school made him walk back normally. He scanned the parking lot, disappointed by the distinct lack of an Impala, and trudged back to his room to start on his homework.

As the clock ticked closer to seven o'clock, Sam started to get nervous. There was still no roar of the Impala, his calls to Dean and his father were going unreturned, and the skeevy motel manager would show up again if they didn't get back soon.

By nine, he was so on edge that he jumped at the knock on the door. Peeking through the eyehole, he saw it was Richard. "Just a sec," he called, scanning the room quickly. Salt in place, everything incriminating tucked away - that was as good as it was going to get. He opened the door and Richard pushed his way in. Sam closed it behind him.

"Still no dad, I see," Richard said casually, sitting on the bed closest to the door. Sam shook his head, trying to keep his loathing off his face. Richard grinned. "You know what that means. But first...I want to see your body. Strip for me, little Sam."

Sam's eyes widened. What? Surely he didn't just say that!

"I said strip, Sam," Richard said, still casual. "Or I'll go ahead and make the call about a boy abandoned in my motel while his family is off having fun."

Sam really didn't have a choice. He did what Richard asked and sucked him off again, enduring the cock in his throat and the fingers massaging his asshole until Richard came and made him swallow again before leaving him alone in the motel room.

Just as he had the night before, Sam threw up, scrubbed himself until his skin was red and raw, and cried himself to sleep.

The next day, Sam was lightheaded all the way through school. His teachers yelled at him again for not doing his schoolwork, but for the second day in a row, Sam couldn't make himself care. Between shame and hunger, there wasn't much room left for emotion. By afternoon, Sam was so hungry he risked slipping into a busy convenience store and filching a few protein bars. He would have felt bad if he'd had the energy.

Or if he hadn't been so damn hungry.

For the third night in a row, he neglected his homework, torn by the insecurity that plagued him. Dean and his father didn't come back that night, but Richard did.

"Going on five days now, Sam," he said, still in that conversational tone Sam was learning to hate. "Five days without your daddy. But this is the third day with me." He pulled down his pants. "Go ahead and suck me, Sam, but I'm not going to cum in your mouth." Sam shot him a confused look midway through unbuttoning his own shirt. "I'm going to cum in your ass," Richard explained. "And if you yell, or run, or do anything to get us caught, well, the police will be more than happy to know your daddy raised a kid who would fuck a forty-year-old."

Sam had never thought about that way of having sex. He'd gotten extremely disjointed talks about sex - his father had dropped a box of condoms and said, "Be safe," his brother had told him, "Tab A into Slot B, she'll be wet, no worries," and he only ever seemed to have sex ed during STD week. That, combined with his age and inexperience, made sure he was thoroughly unprepared for what was about to happen.

It was painful, that was his only thought as Richard thrust into him and told him he was a whore. When he was done, he patted Sam's head, told him, "You know, you're pretty good. You could make some money doing this," before he pulled out of the boy's abused body.

Sam could barely stagger into the bathroom to shower after Richard left. He sobbed into the warm spray, hating himself for what he'd done, hating Dean for not answering his phone when Sam so desperately needed him, hating his father for leaving him with no way to get funds, hating the motel manager for exploiting him like that.

There was no coming back from this, he knew. He'd traded sex for a roof over his head, and that made him filthy. Disgusting. He'd heard his father's scathing comments about streetwalkers since before he'd known what they did, and now he was in the same business they were. He felt a rush of sympathy for them. Were they in the same position he was? Had they been tricked and trapped into it, without the means to leave? Did they have family somewhere who couldn't, or wouldn't, help them, or were they all alone and desperate to survive? Did they go into it expecting one thing and getting another?

Those were questions whose answers were entirely subjective, he knew, and would change depending on the person. He was sure some of them were in the same boat he was, and he was just as sure some of them enjoyed their work.

The steadily-cooling stream of water pulled him from his thoughts. He finished washing himself and turned the water off, suddenly becoming aware that the tub wasn't draining. He looked down and saw that the water was pink, which confused him before horrible clarity took over: he was bleeding.

Had been bleeding, he was relieved to learn. He had clotted fine; now he just had to fix the drain. He reached his hand down, felt around, and pulled up a hairy spider almost the size of his hand, which he threw in the trash with a shriek that would have earned him merciless teasing from Dean. The shower started to drain.

For the third night in a row, he cried himself to sleep. This time, he had Richard's humiliating parting words ringing in his ears: You could make some money doing this….

He woke when he heard the room door open. He reached under his pillow for the knife he kept there and squinted in the darkness, trying to see what was there before he made his wakefulness known, and relaxed at the sight of two familiar silhouettes. "Hey," he said, sitting up and letting go of the knife. "Hunt go okay?"

"Went fine, Sammy," Dean said. "Just took a little longer than we expected." He went into the bathroom, probably to shower.

"I should go down to the office, make sure we're paid up for the night," their father said, sounding exhausted. "How many nights did I pay for before we left?"

Sam gulped. His mind whirled to think of a lie, and he settled on what he'd originally thought to bribe Richard with. "Two," he said, "but I talked the manager into letting me do some maintenance work to pay off the room, so we're good for the night."

"Good boy, Sam," his dad said. Sam just nodded, the now-familiar sense of shame pooling in his belly. If his father knew what Sam had agreed to, the approving edge in his voice would be replaced with disappointment and humiliation. Sam had never been more grateful he'd been taught how to lie.

The next day, when Sam came home from school, the car was packed and ready to go. He tried to be angry about the lack of warning, but all he felt was relief that he was getting away from the skeevy manager.


	2. You Shook Me All Night Long

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam starts hooking.

Three months later, Sam was on his own again, this time in a one-room apartment his dad had rented out in Kentucky. It was bigger than the motel room they usually shared, so nobody complained. His dad and Dean were on another trip, hunting down a witch two states over, and Sam had stayed behind because they'd be gone for a week and Sam missing school for that long would get CPS involved. They'd left him money, and Sam had done his best to make it last, but they'd only expected to be gone for six days and it was the end of the tenth. He hadn't eaten in a day and a half, and his body was telling him in no uncertain terms that it needed something.

With a small sigh, Sam abandoned his history homework and pulled on a sweatshirt. He wouldn't be able to concentrate with his stomach growling the way it was, and it was Friday night anyway. Maybe he could find a busy store and slip a few pieces of cheap food into his pocket without being seen. Ten bucks wouldn't hurt the store's bottom line any, he figured, and it was better than mugging some random stranger for money. He tucked a knife at the small of his back, just in case he ran into trouble on the way to or from the store, and headed out.

He had been walking for five minutes when a car pulled up next to him, rolling the window down. "How much?" the driver asked gruffly.

"I'm sorry?" Sam asked, confused. He leaned over into the car so he could see the man's face.

"For you to blow me," the man said impatiently. "How much?"

Sam couldn't believe it. The man had mistaken him for a prostitute. Sam opened his mouth to tell him to buzz off, but the growl in his stomach stopped him. It wasn't like he hadn't done it before, after all. And this way, at least, he wouldn't have to steal to eat.

"Fifty," he said at last, because that sounded about right. Not that he knew anything about prostitutes beyond what he'd seen in the movie Pretty Woman, which Dean had shown him a few months before, but he thought any more risked the man driving away.

The driver grunted and reached over to open the door. "Get in."

Forty-five minutes later, Sam was ashamed of himself, but he had fifty dollars in his pocket, and that was more than enough to buy himself some food, so all in all, the night wasn't a total bust. Once he'd eaten something, some of the shame eased.

After all, Sam thought, this was just another job. Mechanical. Piston into cylinder to keep the engine running, totally normal, completely fine. He felt his breath quicken and made himself relax, coming up with more arguments for why he shouldn't be ashamed. He told himself he was just helping people out with a problem. Biological urges shouldn’t be denied, and as long as nobody got hurt, there was nothing to worry about. If it wasn't him sucking people off, it would be someone else. It was an easy way to make money. He wasn't going to make a habit of it, he'd only do it when he was really desperate and needed fast cash.

But all the arguments in the world couldn't make him feel better when he laid down to sleep and felt a phantom pressure on his tongue.

Over time, it happened more and more often. His dad and Dean would leave him behind for whatever reason - a ghost that killed people under the age of eighteen, a monster that his father didn't think he was ready to face, a test he begged to stay behind to take - and even though they usually got back within the time they'd told him he would be alone, sometimes they weren't. Sometimes the money ran out and he needed to make money somehow. Thanks to labor laws, he couldn't get a job until he was at least fifteen and a half, sometimes seventeen, depending on where they were - and if Sam's family was late and the rent was due, he would be homeless unless he came up with the cash.

By the time Sam was fourteen, he'd learned the trick of shutting himself away in his mind enough to be somewhere else but not so far away he couldn’t make the required sounds and movements. He learned how to relax his muscles to keep from bleeding when he was bought by a man and he learned how to hold off his climax when he was with a woman. When he was bought by a couple, he learned how to stay hard for her while being pummeled by him.

His constant companion was a mix of self-loathing, anger, and fear. He hated living that way - letting strangers paw all over his body in exchange for rent and food, keeping a wary eye out for cops, lying and saying he was eighteen if anyone asked (which they rarely did; he assumed they just didn't want to know). If his family ever found out how he made ends meet, he knew how they would feel: Dean would be upset about being unable to protect Sam, while their father would be disgusted by him. What he didn't know was how those emotions would come out in actions, since none of them were particularly good at reacting to news with anything other than violence. Still, as time wore on, he started to get irritated at his family for not noticing anything: he worked strange hours, he limped, he had a pair of Goodwill-issue booty shorts in his duffel...but he knew that wasn't fair, he was working hard to keep them from guessing, and knowing his irritation was unfair made him angry. 

The secrecy drove a wedge between him and them, and that made him lonely. He wished, more than anything, that he could tell his family what he was doing - or, better yet, stop and never tell them at all - but he knew he couldn't.

Still, hatred, anger, and fear beat homelessness and hunger, and it was nice to have a couple bucks laying around if there was an emergency. Like the time the credit card got declined when his father was filling up the Impala, and Sam could cover the cost of the gas. Or when there was a field trip at school and Sam talked his father into letting him go. Or when Dean's birthday rolled around. Sam could justify his job by the looks of relief and happiness on his family's faces when Sam's "odd jobs" could cover the gaps credit cards couldn't entirely meet. He could even convince himself he was doing the right thing, sometimes, when it had been longer than a month since he was working a corner and the memories had faded.

The scars he started to accumulate from hunting meant his customers were afraid to cheat him and were more likely to tip, which meant Sam could work less often and turn down more of the people he thought might slit his throat and dump him in an alley. He was better at fighting than most, thanks to his father's training and brother's sparring, but he knew better than to think a skinny teenager could take down a full-grown, muscle-bound man. Maybe when he could take a wendigo by himself, but until then, he wasn't pressing his luck.

One night, one night that would be burned into his memory forever, his father looked at him. "Hey, Sam," he said, "we're running low on medical supplies and all the cards are maxed out. Tomorrow, do you think you can find some of those jobs you're so good at?"

Sam's throat constricted and he nodded, standing from the bed in the motel room. "Yeah. I'll go around now, see if I can rustle up some jobs. People are more likely to be home now, anyway."

"Be home by one and take a knife," his father said, and that was that. Sam wasn't sure how late most fourteen-year-olds' curfew was, but he doubted it was that late. His father had gotten so out of touch with normal life that he didn't think that most people would be asleep by midnight on a Wednesday.

He walked back into the room at twelve-thirty and handed his father three hundred. "Paid in advance," Sam lied. "I have a lot of lawns to mow tomorrow." He escaped to the shower, getting a tiny measure of satisfaction from the look of gratitude on his father's face. They may be fighting more and more, partially because Sam didn't want to leave a town when he knew where the cops hung out, but they were still family.

Sam leaned his forehead against the shower wall and reached behind him, letting the warm water spray down his back and clean out his hole. He'd taken three jobs that night, two blows followed by two men in a position they called 'spit-roasting'. He wished he could purge the cum from his stomach, but if he did that now, his father and brother would overhear and ask too many questions. 

He thudded his head against the wall, irrationally angry at his father. It hurt to have his dad ask him to sell himself, even if the man was entirely clueless about what he did to make money so fast. The memory of his father's relief cleared his anger and almost wiped the disgusting feeling right out of him. He was doing his best, Sam knew, and if he ever found out Sam liked to think he wouldn't be too angry. But he couldn't count on that reaction, so Sam had to hide.

And that's how it went for years. Sam would be left behind and would need money, or they'd be running low on something and his father would ask Sam to find some odd jobs for petty cash, and Sam would go out that night and sell himself to whoever would take him. Sometimes he'd have to sell himself three or four times a night to make the kind of money he needed, especially if he only had three days to come up with rent or one of them got sick and they had to pay for a prescription. But he did take precautions: he made sure to always use a condom, and he ferreted out a clinic and got himself tested for STDs every time they were in the same town for at least a month.

When he was almost sixteen, he had a major scare. The HIV test came back positive, and Sam spent weeks freaking out and trying to remember how to breathe. He spent weeks figuring out how to tell his dad, tell Dean, what had happened. He spent weeks trying to keep anyone from guessing it was the worst few weeks of his life - but luckily, he hit a growth spurt, and any moodiness that leaked through was shrugged off as puberty. But then the confirmation tests came back negative - the first test had returned a false positive - and he felt like he could have flown.

Some nights he wished he'd never started himself on this path with that motel manager when he was thirteen. Sam couldn't even remember the man's name now, lost as it was with the hundreds of others he'd been used by. Those were the nights that came when he was alone and aching from a customer's harsh use, and those were the nights Sam hated every damn thing and considered the guns in the next room.

Some nights he was okay with what he did. Those nights came when a major bill was coming due and Sam could ease his father's stress, which made him happier, which meant there were fewer arguments. Contrary to popular belief, Sam hated fighting with his father. He just didn't understand the man. Those were the nights he considered car accidents and letting the next hunt go poorly for himself.

Some nights he didn’t think about his job at all. Those nights were usually when it was just him and Dean in a motel room watching a crappy movie and joking around, and they were the best nights Sam had. Those were the nights Sam considered nothing but the movie and his older brother.


	3. Are You Ready

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam learns what he's hunting.

Sam was sixteen and had been turning tricks for a little over three years now. It had gotten easier over the years, but not a day went by where he didn't wish he'd figured out a different way to pay for food and motel rooms and apartments when money was tight. That he didn't need to do it very often to keep himself fed and clothed was his saving grace, especially since it was easier to keep his family in the dark if he only did it when he was desperate.

It was too good to last.

Sam was woken one bright summer morning by his father. "Get up, Sam, we've got a hunt."

"Whazzit on?" he asked groggily, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

"There's something killing streetwalkers in Texas."

Sam's heart slammed in his chest. A ghost killing people like him. Damn it. How was he going to get out of that one?

Relax, he told himself. It's not like it's branded on your forehead for the world to see. He dressed, packed, and followed Dean out the door of the latest crappy motel, hiding his pain the best he could - one of his father's cuts had gotten infected and he'd needed antibiotics, so Sam had had to work the night before. He'd gotten very good at hiding that sort of pain, and neither of them noticed anything strange.

He spent the eight hours in the car trying to keep himself calm and act normal, but it was hard. He was throwing himself into a hunt where he was the bait and his family had no idea. There was no way he could tell them. He couldn't stand to see the hurt on Dean's face and the anger on his father's. Luckily - or perhaps not - his father ranted the first half of the way there, giving Sam time to pull himself together.

"Whores selling their body to anyone who will pay. It's not right. Jerks pay them, too, that's the sad thing. People will stick their dicks into anything warm, and it's disgusting…." Sam didn't have to say much beyond the occasional 'yeah' or 'you're right', and his dad's ranting meant Dean couldn't start talking to Sam and draw him out.

"Remember, boys," their father finished as he pulled into a gas station, "don't ever pay for sex, because you can be sure they all have something."

Sam thought about asking What about being paid?, just to see his father's reaction, but he knew better. Very little got John Winchester as upset as prostitution.

The rest of the drive was made in silence, and it was dusk by the time they reached a motel on the outskirts of Austin. Their father told them he'd take them to the library in the morning to do research and went to get pizza.

As soon as he was out of the room, Dean turned on Sam. "What's going on?"

"What?" Sam asked, trying to look like he didn't know what Dean was talking about.

Dean snorted. "Come on, Sam. You can't lie to me." I have for three years. "You've been quiet, even for you, and you've had a bitchface on all day. What's going on?"

"Nothing," Sam said. Seeing the look on Dean's face, he scrambled to come up with a lie. "I just woke up with a headache this morning, and it hasn't really gone away."

"Have you taken anything?"

Sam shook his head. He hated taking pills.

Dean sighed. "Sam. Take some Tylenol."

"But -"

"If you've had this headache all day," Dean overrode him, "it's not going to get better on its own. Take the goddamn Tylenol."

Sam nodded and went to the duffel they kept the first aid kit in, dry-swallowing two of the little white pills. "Happy?" he asked Dean.

"Yes," Dean shot back. "Now get over here, geek-boy, and help me figure out pattern."

"Didn't Dad say it was prostitutes?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, but he left out some stuff."

"Like what?"

"Like how the thing goes after guys under eighteen."

Sam's blood ran cold. "Can't be too many of those," he said, trying to look like he wasn't starting to freak.

Dean shook his head. "After the first three went missing, most of the rest packed up and left. After the next two, nobody was staying. By now, the only kids working the street are new moves, and they're all killed within a week."

"Where were they taken from?" Sam asked.

"All over the east side," Dean groaned. He flatted a map of Austin they'd grabbed from a convenience store and pointed out where each of the boys had been taken, including how they'd been killed and what kind of car they'd last been seen getting into. He was right, they had been all over the place, and not just geographically. None of them had the same method of execution or car.

"And where were the bodies left?" Sam asked.

Dean's finger moved again, and Sam thought he saw something. "What order are you going in?" he asked. "First to last?"

"Yeah, why?"

Sam grabbed a black pen. "Start over." He followed Dean's finger and frowned at the picture it made. "I've seen this before," he mumbled.

"What?"

"This sign. I've seen it. I think it was at Bobby's, it's some kind of sigil, but it's not complete yet. Infinity and arrows, but it's missing a couple of points." He looked up to see Dean staring at him. "What?"

"You're getting freaky smart."

"Thanks." Sam wasn't sure how else to respond. "If Dad doesn't know what the sign is, we should call Bobby, see if he remembers." He frowned and pulled out another pen, this time one with blue ink. "It's probably nothing, but can you point out where they were taken again?"

By the time their father got back with pizza, they had concluded the boys were being taken wherever they could be found and Sam had scribbled the finished symbol on the side of the map.

"Hey, boys," their father said. "Find anything interesting?"

"Yes, sir," Dean said enthusiastically. "Sammy figured out why they were getting dumped where they were."

"It's Sam," Sam said, knowing Dean would ignore him.

"Why were they getting dumped where they were?" their dad asked, walking over.

"It's a sigil I saw at Bobby's, or at least, I think it is," Sam said softly. "Have you seen it before?" He tapped on the one he'd scribbled at the edge of the map.

Their dad stared at it for a second. "It's the alchemic symbol for sulfur. It's pretty exclusively Satanic now."

"The infinity symbol I get, but what do the arrows mean?" Dean asked.

Their father quirked a smile. "Those aren't arrows, Dean, it's just that Sam saw the stylized version. It's a Lorraine cross. Good job finding this. Now let's eat."  
***  
Three days later, they hadn't had a break in the case, and two more prostitutes had died. All three of the Winchesters were going nuts, trying to figure out what they were missing.

At the end of day four, their father hadn't slept for two days. He suggested they set a trap and Dean shouted him down. His little brother would not be used as bait.

By day six, the body count had risen to sixteen. If whatever it was they were hunting followed the pattern they thought it was using, there would be a total of twenty-one bodies before it was over.

Sam waited for Dean to get a shower before he spoke. "Dad, a trap might be the only way to get this thing."

"No," his father said firmly. "If I wasn't half-asleep I wouldn't have even considered it."

"So we just let more people die? And then what? What's this thing's end game?"

"End game?" his father echoed. "What do you mean?"

Sam pulled up short. His father wasn't usually so dense. "Are you feeling okay?"

"I'm fine. Don't change the subject. What do you mean by end game?"

"It's arranging these bodies for a reason. It's a Satanic symbol. What if this is some Satanic rite?"

The man stared at him. "You're right. How did I miss this?"

"You're tired and you're stressed," Sam said calmly. 

"Shit. Dean!" his father yelled. "Get out here ASAP! We got a problem!"

They heard the shower shut off abruptly, and Dean came out not thirty seconds later with a towel wrapped around his waist. "What's wrong?"

"Sam pointed out that they're arranging the bodies this way for a reason."

"Maybe it's their idea of fun," Dean said sarcastically.

"Or maybe it's a rite."

"Shit," Dean unknowingly echoed his father. "That's...shit."

"We have to set a trap," Sam said. "It's the only way -"

"No," Dean and their father said together.

"It's too risky," John elaborated.

"I'm trained," Sam reminded him. "And do we really have any other choice? Five more people are going to die, and then who knows how many after that. We have to stop this."

"No," Dean said again. "Sam, think about this for a minute. She goes after prostitutes. You'd have to do something for someone, probably a man. You're not doing this."

"Dean. Dad." Sam's voice was deadly serious. "I get that you want to protect me, I do. But if getting screwed means saving lives, that's a trade I'll make."

"You'd screw a dude? That's it, no hesitation?" Dean asked in disbelief. "Are you gay or something?"

"No!" Sam shook his head. "No, Dean, I'm not. I've just been thinking about this since Dad floated it two days ago."

"You've been thinking about this for two days?" his father asked.

"Yeah, Dad, I have. I'm okay with blowing a guy or getting screwed, if it comes down to it, if it'll keep people safe. Really."

"And if you get caught by the cops?"

Sam pretended to think for a moment, even though he'd had this excuse ready for quite a while. "I'll say...I'll say I went for a walk because you and my older brother went out for a night on the town and I wanted some air. I was heading back to the motel where we're staying when this guy came up and dragged me into the car. I'm only sixteen, they'll believe it, and they won't expect you to be here if they bother to bring me back. It'll be the driver that gets in trouble - which is what he gets for exploiting teenagers." Sam tacked that last bit on there both to keep his cover and because he'd always been contemptuous of his clients.

"Sam…" his dad ran a hand through his hair and looked helplessly at Dean. Turning his head, Sam saw Dean had the same look of hopelessness on his face.

"What?"

"Sam, this isn't - this isn't what you'd expect. You'd get hurt," his father said.

"Not like I haven't gotten hurt on other hunts," Sam pointed out.

"This is different," Dean told him.

"How? Because it involves knowing what I'm getting into?"

"No!" his father snapped. "It's different because - because this is sex. There won't be love, there won't be tenderness, it'll just be...mechanical, I guess, would describe it. It's not what you want for your first time."

"Maybe it isn't," Sam allowed. That ship sailed years ago. "But this is the only way I can think of to draw them out. Got any better ideas?"

He knew by their silence that he had won, and marveled briefly that he was actually begging his father to let him be a prostitute. The world had gone mad.

"Just...just give us a day, Sam," Dean said weakly.

"If we don't have any other plan by tomorrow night," his father said, "we'll hammer this one out, see if we can make it work."

Sam nodded.  
***  
None of them had any brilliant ideas come to them in their sleep, so the next night, Sam found himself being driven to a street they'd noted as Austin's version of a red-light district. "I don't like this," Dean said for the twentieth time.

Sam leveled a glare at the back of his head. "Don’t think anyone does."

"Then why are you doing this?" Dean sniped.

"Because it's better than letting people die," Sam said tiredly. They'd had the same conversation a dozen times already, and every time, Dean had escalated it until they were yelling.

"Boys," their father said, looking into the rearview mirror at Sam with guilt in his eyes, "we're here. Remember the plan." They both nodded as he pulled over. "Good luck."

"Thanks," Sam breathed, and got out.

The night went like any other work night: someone pulled up in a car, haggled over the price, and either forked over the cash or didn't. At that point, Sam would either get in or walk away. Sometimes, very rarely, he would start to get in and then leave, throwing the money back at the driver, but that was only if he spotted something that meant trouble. If he saw a weapon or drugs, he was gone.

Four hours after he'd started, he'd taken two customers. He'd usually stop at this point and go back to the motel, but he couldn't do that now. He considered for a moment, then began walking back to the Impala. He had well over four hundred dollars in his pocket and he wanted that money safe.

"Sam?" his father asked urgently when he opened the back door. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Sam said, sounding tired. "Just - here." He put the wad of cash in his father's hand. "Don't want to get mugged," he explained.

His father's jaw clenched. "Sam, if you're tired, we can go back to the motel -"

"No," Sam interrupted, pretending he couldn't see the heartbreak in his dad's eyes. "You were right. This is hard. But we've got to figure out what's killing people. I'll see you in a bit. Daylight, if not before."

"Daylight," his father echoed. Sam closed the door walked back to the street, pretending he wasn't hurt that Dean hadn't even acknowledged him.

By dawn, he'd made another six hundred-odd dollars. He stumbled back to the Impala, tired and sore, and handed the money over. He'd made nearly eleven hundred dollars in a single night, more than he'd ever managed before, but that was good. That would keep them from guessing this wasn't his first time working a corner.

He barely kept himself awake on the way back to their room. He was so tired that he wouldn't have bothered trying to stay awake if he hadn't known that sleeping for ten minutes would only make him more exhausted when he awoke. His father helped him with that, keeping up a steady stream of chatter designed to keep Sam from falling asleep.

Sam took first shower, and neither Dean nor his father complained. He scrubbed himself raw - again - feeling the shame he always felt bubble over until he needed a physical reminder that he was disgusting. When he got out, he said to his father, "It missed me last night."

"Or it wasn't hunting."

"We'll try again tonight."

"Sam, you're not -"

"I am. We'll talk more when I've slept." He didn't wait to see his father's reaction, just crawled into bed. The last thing he knew before he fell asleep was guilt that Dean hadn't looked at or spoken to him once since Sam had left the car to act as bait.  
***  
He woke to hear Dean and his father talking at the table. He kept his eyes closed, wondering what they were discussing.

"...shouldn't have let him do it, Dad."

"I know." Their father sounded sad. "But he had a point."

"He didn't know what he was getting into. God only knows what last night did to him."

"He wants to go again tonight."

"No. I won't let him."

"He's old enough to make his own decisions. You can't protect him forever."

"And you can't let him do this again! What if he gets seriously hurt doing this?"

"Then we'll deal with it. He came up with a good cover, and we'll use it if we have to."

"What if he gets killed? Some psycho picks him up?"

"Sam can defend himself. He can almost take you, and he could probably take me if we went at it."

Sam felt a rush of pride at those words. His father actually did care about what he did. Cared about him.

"I know, Dad, but he's just a kid." Dean was pleading now.

"He's sixteen. This comes down to him, Dean. If he doesn't want to go again tonight, that's fine. We'll find some other way. God knows I won't push him into this. Knowing what he probably had to do last night...I don't know how he managed it."

Sam decided to make his presence known and sat up. "Because I couldn't let people die."

"Sam?" his father asked. "How long have you been up?"

"Since you started talking about how you two shouldn't have let me go out last night." Sam swung his feet over the side of the bed. "By the way, we're going again tonight."

"Sam, you don't have to do this," his father reminded him.

Sam met his eyes. "I know you won't make me. I know you'd rather I didn't. But we need to catch it."

"Are you sure you're up to it? You went in blind last night, and now that you know…"

"I'm okay," Sam soothed. "It needs to be done, and you're both too old." He smirked.

"Is this a joke to you?" Dean snapped suddenly.

Sam blinked. "No?"

"Then stop acting like it is," he snarled, stalking to the door and slamming it behind him on his way out.

Sam sighed. It was starting. He was doing this for a hunt and Dean hated him for it; if he ever found out this wasn't Sam's first time, his reaction didn't bear thinking about.

"He's just worried, Sam," his father said quietly.

"I know." Sam bit his lip and willed away the tears of betrayal and anger.

"I am, too. I don't think I ever told you this, but one of my army buddies was a prostitute."

Sam's head jerked up. His father was not a share-and-care man by any stretch of the imagination. He hesitated, then padded over to the table and sat across from him.

"He hadn't started yet when we were deployed, but when we came back, well...the civilians weren't exactly fans of Vietnam vets. You weren't alive then, obviously, but I'm sure you've read about it for school. Unjust wars, give peace a chance, all that hippie crap. And the government wasn't much help. 

"I found a job as a mechanic. Robert wasn't so lucky. His family had died when we were over there, so he didn't have any sort of safety net. He ended up working the streets to make rent for a crappy apartment and to eat twice a week. I helped as much as I could, but money was tight for me, too. About six months after we got back, he was working when a rough guy came up. Robert had a pretty strict policy on who he took as customers, he told me. If he saw drugs or weapons in the car, he was out." That was the same as Sam's rule. Clearly he wasn't the only one who thought about things like that, and he felt stupid for thinking he was. "The problem was that the guy had the gun under his seat. He shot Robert when he was through with him, shoved his body out of the car, and took off."

He took a deep breath and went on. "A couple found him four hours later. I was his emergency contact, so the morgue called me down. There wasn't much left of his face, and I only knew it was him by the tattoo on his arm. This is a dangerous business, Sam. I don't want you ending up like him, dead in a ditch with your head blown off."

"I won't," Sam said quietly. He debated for a moment, then reached across the table to touch his father's arm. "I'll be careful. I actually turned down two guys last night. One of them had a bag of rocks, and the other had a knife the size of my arm." That was a lie - he hadn't turned down anyone the night before, those two had been in San Antonio and Portland, respectively - but his father didn't need to know that.

His father met his eyes. "I was worried all last night," he confessed. "Dean, too." Sam tightened his hand. "Sam, knowing what you know now, are you honestly, completely, one hundred percent okay with doing this again?"

Sam grimaced and rubbed his eyes with the hand not touching his father. "I don't know," he admitted. "You were right. It was hard. No pun intended," he added with a shadow of a grin. 

His father groaned. "You're getting as bad as Dean."

"Took me long enough," Sam teased, but he sobered quickly. "I'd be lying if I said I enjoyed it. If we had any other plan, no matter how bad it was, I'd jump on it in a heartbeat. But we don't. We can't even watch the other boys, because we don't know what we're looking for. This is the only way, so I have to be okay with it." Truthfully, he'd never been okay with it, but he was doing it with his father's sanction and protection now. That had to count for something.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

For the second time in twenty minutes, Sam jerked to stare at his father. "Are you feeling okay? You're not normally so…" Sam waved his hand, trying to express what he didn't have words for.

"Open?" his father suggested. Sam nodded. "I'm fine, Sam. It's just that I know this can't be easy for you, and unlike all the other stuff, this is something I don't know about firsthand. But Robert...he was messed up pretty bad from doing this. Got pretty heavy into drinking. I know that won't happen from one night, but if you need to talk about it…."

Sam gulped. This was his big chance, his opportunity to get some of the weight off his chest - but before he could say anything, the door opened and Dean walked in.

"Hey," Dean mumbled.

"Hey," Sam said back. Dean just nodded and pulled out a knife and a whetstone. Sam slumped a little, defeated, and his father patted the hand on his arm. Sam stood. "I'm gonna take another shower."

"Go for it," his father said.

Sam scrubbed himself raw again, feeling phantom hands all over him. Not just from last night - from every night he'd been out, from every customer he'd ever had, and he found himself crumpling to the bottom of the shower, pulling his knees to his chest, and crying as quietly as he could manage.  
***  
He got out of the shower when the water started to cool. Toweling himself off, he heard Dean saying something. He sounded angry, so Sam stopped to listen.

"I can't believe he's doing this! I mean, what, one night getting screwed by dudes wasn’t enough? He has to have two of them?" Sam flinched, but Dean wasn't done. "Degrading himself like that, after everything we've done for him - how can he do that? How much of a freak can he be?"

Sam's heart broke just a little more. Dean, his hero, so angry after just one night of knowing what Sam was doing.

He pulled away from the door. He didn’t want to hear the rest of Dean's tirade. He dressed as slowly as he could and only came out when he heard the door slam shut. For the first time in his life, he hoped it was Dean who had left.

It was. His father was alone in the room, cleaning the Smith & Wesson .357. He looked up, saw Sam's face, and sighed. "How much of that did you hear?"

"I stopped listening after he called me a freak," Sam said quietly.

His dad put the gun down. "You know he didn't mean it."

"Do I?" Sam asked. "I know how you two feel about - about the kind of thing I did last night, and about the people who do them -"

"Sam." His father's voice was steady, if a little sad, when he cut him off. "It's not them I have a problem with, not really. It's the customers. It’s the people who create the demand. I'm not a huge fan of the suppliers, but I know sometimes it's the only way. Dean - I don’t really know how he feels about the whole thing, not really, but I know he's worried about you. He just bottles it up until he explodes."

"Yeah," Sam said glumly. "But it's not just him calling me a freak. He can't even look at me anymore, I disgust him so much after last night."

"Sam." He had never heard his father use that tone, a mix of disbelief and anger that was tinged with sadness. "He's not disgusted with you. He's disgusted that he couldn't find a way to keep you from doing what needs to be done."

"He can't protect me from everything," Sam said quietly.

"Neither can I."

Sam sat at the table, across from his father, in almost the same position they'd been in before Dean had come in and Sam had gone for a shower. He traced the grain lines on the battered wood, suddenly shy. He'd been playing a part for years, and now he could stop, if only for a little while. 

"Do you want to talk about it?" his father asked.

Sam battled with himself. He'd been so close earlier, if only Dean hadn't interrupted. This was his big chance to get closer to his father, and wasn't that what he'd been wanting for years? But at the same time, this was huge, this was the biggest secret he'd ever had, and he wasn't sure he wanted to drag it into the light of day.

Realizing he could get away with only talking about one night, Sam made up his mind.

"It was weird," he said quietly. "I kind of...disengaged, maybe, once I was sure the guy wasn't who we were looking for. I was still feeling it, and God did it feel strange and kinda painful, but I wasn’t really feeling it. If that makes any sense?" He looked at his father hopefully, wanting him to understand what he was saying.

His father nodded. "There's some fancy term for that, but I know what you mean. I've done it myself a couple times, when I've been hurt bad on a hunt."

"Yeah. So you know what I'm talking about. It was just - I don't know - I felt...vulnerable, maybe." Sam struggled to come up with the words. "I knew I could take them if they tried to hurt me, but it was different. I didn’t have any weapons, and if they did, it doesn't matter how good I am. Bullet beats fists.

"But it wasn't just vulnerability, Dad, it was...confusing. I didn't like it, but it had to be done and it had to be convincing. It was difficult, but it was easier than I expected it to be, and I don't know if it was easier because I freaked myself out or if there's something wrong with me…." Sam buried his face in his hands. "What if there is something wrong with me? What if it was easier than I expected because I'm easier than I expec-"

His dad cut him off by pulling him out of the chair and into a hug. Sam froze - his father hadn't hugged him since he was ten - and then hugged him back. "There is nothing wrong with you, Sam," his father said into his ear. "I don't want you to ever think that about yourself. It's good that you expected worse than you got."

"How?" Sam's voice cracked embarrassingly.

"Because it means you were prepared. You were ready. And that's the best thing you could be." His father's voice trembled. "If it was me in your place, I don't know if I could do it."

Sam didn’t know if agreeing or disagreeing was the right thing to do, so he kept quiet.

They stayed that way, wrapped in a hug, for a few more moments before drawing back at almost the same time. Sam glanced at the clock.

"It's almost nine," he said. "We should get ready."

"You know you don't have to -"

"You sound like a broken record, Dad." Sam grinned, John smiled back, and for a second, nothing was wrong in the world.  
***  
It was approaching four in the morning and Sam was tired. He'd already been screwed by four men and had blown two others. He made periodic trips to the car to drop off the cash.

A truck pulled up, and a woman with a bright smile leaned over the seat. A short conversation, a clean cab, and money changing hands had Sam climbing into the passenger seat, bemused but not alarmed. Not many women hired prostitutes, but it did happen, and the ones who did tended to be much more gentle with him than the men were.

They were also more likely to rent a motel room or take him back to their houses rather than having a quickie in the car. This one - "Samantha", she informed him, and he almost laughed at the sheer coincidence - was no different, pulling up to a house maybe two miles from where she'd picked him up.

"You have a nice place," he said politely as she opened the door for him.

"Such a nice boy," she murmured. Something in her tone set off alarm bells, and he swung around just in time to see the baseball bat swinging at his head.

He ducked with a speed that came from years of hunting supernatural threats and sent a leg out to kick her in the stomach. She fell back with a quiet oomph and he straddled her, pinning her hands over her head.

"What are you and why are you killing prostitutes?" he demanded. Her eyes flickered behind him, and he turned to see another baseball bat coming toward his head. This one he wasn't quick enough to evade, and it smashed into his face full-force. He listed off Samantha's body, losing consciousness before he even hit the floor.


	4. Kicked in the Teeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conclusion.

When he woke, it was to cool air flowing over his body. He was tied spread-eagle to a stone table, fully naked and with a pounding headache.

"He's awake!" someone tittered, and he could suddenly see seven faces looking down at him. The youngest looked about twelve and most of the rest looked like teenagers; Samantha was the oldest in her early forties.

Sam groaned. "What are you?"

"Witches," the twelve-year-old informed him proudly. "We get our power from the Dark Lord Satan."

Sam closed his eyes. Witches.

"Uh uh uh," a girl who looked to be his age said, tapping the side of his face. "Eyes open, sweetheart."

Sweetheart?

He studied their faces again, committing them to memory, before turning his attention to the rest of the room, ignoring the hands pawing at him. Symbols he'd seen before thrown together higgledy-piggledy on the wall, one to summon ghosts right next to one designed to keep ghosts away, told him what he was actually up against.

Humans.

Not even witches. Just humans trying to be witches and doing a damn crappy job of it.

"So what's the master plan?" he asked abruptly. "Draw out the alchemic symbol for sulfur, and then what?" The world tilted and he saw three or four of everything for a moment before he managed to focus again.

"Then Satan will rise," the youngest informed him happily.

"Shut up, Lucy," Samantha snapped. She turned her eyes back to Sam. "Yes, Satan will rise, and we will be rewarded."

"So you draw out a symbol over the course of weeks, guaranteeing the blood will be washed away, and expect that to summon Satan?" Sam asked skeptically. "Not very well thought out, if you ask me."

Samantha's hand crashed against his cheek, making the world spin again. The dizziness led to an overwhelming feeling of nausea. "Nobody asked you," she snapped.

Sam frowned at her. "Have you ever even met a low-level demon?" he asked doubtfully.

"The demons are trapped in Hell, boy," she snapped at him. "You're an idiot."

Definitely just a bunch of stupid humans.

"So what are you going to do to me?" he asked casually.

She snickered. "One of us is going to fuck you for the first part of the ritual." As if on cue, one of the hands touching him moved to stroke his cock. "Then she's going to stab you right as the two of you come. Joanna, would you like the honor?"

"Of course," a brunette girl, all of thirteen, said sweetly. She took the knife Samantha handed to her and started undressing.

The others all stepped back, and Sam had to crane his head to see them kneeling in a circle around them. A soft Latin chant rose from their throats, asking Lucifer to accept their sacrifice, and not even Lucy stumbled over the words.

Joanna straddled him, and he made himself focus on her. The knife was in her hand, but she leaned forward to rub her chest in his face. He hardened against his will, and she smiled at him, moving down to impale herself.

She picked up the rhythm as the chanting grew louder, and Sam desperately tested the bindings on his wrists. He hated himself for not testing them sooner when he realized he knew how to get out of them. He went to work quickly, struggling to free his hands before she came and stabbed him.

There! He slipped his hands out - she hadn't seen, her eyes were closed, stupid girl - and lunged forward, pulling the knife from her unsuspecting hand and shoving her off him and onto the floor. He cut the ropes holding his feet and stood, searching for the door.

It was of course, behind Samantha.

Somebody grabbed him, and he punched hard. Then they were all on him, and he was slashing out with the knife and kicking hard, just trying to get the hell out of the basement. For all their numbers, he was much larger and stronger than any of them, even Samantha. Still, his head was killing him, and seeing three of everything was a problem. He felt like he was drunk.

Sam felt a small pang of remorse every time he slashed somebody - they were human, and they were only teenagers - but he had to get out before they killed him. He had no doubt they would.

He managed to make it to the bottom of the stairs, kick off the person grabbing him, and run up. He slammed the door closed behind him and locked it, unsurprised Samantha had felt the need for a lock. Then he looked around taking in the room - what he assumed to be a typical house. There was a phone on the wall, and he staggered over, his hurt head making itself known once more. He dialed the number he knew by heart and his dad picked up on the first ring.

"Hey, Dad. It's Sam. Look, I found who's been doing this, but I'm not real sure where I am. They were humans, Dad, not even real witches."

"Are you okay?"

"Um." Sam's head swam. "Think I might be concussed. Got hit pretty hard with a baseball bat. Some scratches and bruises, nothing too awful. My clothes are missing."

"Okay, good. That's good. Now, much as I hate to do this, you need to call the police."

"What?" Sam blurted.

"If they're human, they're not our problem," his father reminded him. "I'm guessing there's plenty of evidence to convict them wherever it was they were killing them."

"Yeah," Sam said, "there definitely is."

"Call them, tell them you don't know where you are but that you've been attacked. Take the ride to the hospital. How far away are you?"

"Probably about two miles from the road."

"We'll meet you at the hospital. Good job, Sam."

"Thanks, Dad."

He stared at the phone in his hand, took a deep breath, and dialed.

"911, what is your emergency?"

Twenty minutes later found Sam wrapped in a blanket on the back of an ambulance, taking the EMTs' concussion test and watching as the police led the women - girls, really - out of the house and into the waiting van.

"Kid, you've definitely got at least a concussion," the EMT informed him.

"What?" He'd been too wrapped up in watching the house to pay much attention to the light in front of his eyes and the hand that cupped his face to keep out the light of dawn.

"Concussion," she repeated. "We're going to take you to the hospital. Is there someone to call for you?"

Sam frowned at her. "I called my dad right before I called you guys. I told him I had a concussion and he said he'd meet me at the hospital."

"Why didn't he meet you here?" the EMT asked with a frown of her own.

"I didn't know where I was. I still don’t, actually, what street are we on?"

"Ashland. Now stop talking so I can clean the cut on your cheek."

Sam shut up and let her do her job. He watched as the last girl, Lucy, was brought out. She waved happily at him with cuffed hands and he felt his throat grow uncomfortably tight. He felt bad for her and the younger teens. Samantha - and he had no doubt it was she who had led the girls astray - had a lot to answer for.

"All right," the EMT said at last, "let's get you loaded up." She pulled him into the back of the ambulance with surprising strength and closed the doors. They made it halfway to the hospital before the long night caught up with Sam and he fell asleep.

He woke up in a hospital room with his father on one side of the bed and Dean on the other. Both of them were asleep and looked like hell. His father was holding his right hand; Dean wasn't touching him at all, and he swallowed down the lump of misery in his throat.

The door opened and he looked up. A man Sam guessed to be in his mid-fifties wearing a white lab coat and scrubs smiled at him. "Hello," he said softly, "glad to see you awake."

Sam frowned. "What did I sleep through?"

"You had a linear fracture in the temporal bone," the doctor answered. "You were hit with a baseball bat, I think?" Sam nodded. "You were concussed, so we did a CT scan and found the break. You'll need to take it easy for a while, and you'll be dizzy and nauseous, but that will fix itself in time. You also had some cuts that needed stitching. Those will itch as they heal."

"How soon until I can leave?" Sam asked. He was obviously a bit too loud, because Dean and his father were instantly awake.

"How you feeling?" his father asked.

"I'm fine. Doc, when can I leave?"

"I'd like to keep you here for at least a few more hours to be sure the break didn't cause any problems, but if all goes well, you can leave after that."

"Thanks," Sam said.

"The police want to talk to you," the doctor said. "Are you up to it?"

"Can we have a couple minutes?" his dad asked.

"Sure," the doctor answered, and walked back out.

His father smiled down at him. "You did well, Sam," he said quietly.

"Thanks, Dad."

"What were they?" Dean asked. "Succubi, witches…?"

At least they were talking again. "Neither," Sam said with a grimace. "They were stupid humans who thought they could become witches if they summoned Satan. The signs they had painted were all kinds of messed up - summoning signs next to banishing ones, protection next to death - it's a wonder they didn't get themselves killed painting them."

"Humans who wanted to become witches," his father said, shaking his head.

"People are weird," Dean grumbled.

"Okay. So. Cover story," Sam said. "Any ideas as to why I was in the house?"

"You couldn't sleep so you went for a walk," his father said instantly. Clearly he'd thought about it. "You slipped out without waking either of us. You were walking down the street when some crazy woman pulled up next to you. She thought you were a prostitute, and being sixteen, you figured you'd take her up on the offer, even if you turned down the money. From there on, tell the truth."

"Right," Sam said. "A crazy woman convinced a bunch of teenagers that they could summon Satan and become witches."

"Teenagers?" Dean said sharply.

"You - uh - hadn't heard that?" Sam asked. "Youngest looked about twelve, oldest around seventeen, and then Samantha was in her forties."

"They pulled a twelve-year-old into this?" His father was horrified, but Sam was spared from having to answer by a knock on the door. Two men in police uniforms walked through.

"Samuel Winchester?" the one on the right asked. He was short but trim.

"Yes," he answered, sitting up.

"I'm Officer Mitchell, this is Officer Buttrell, can you tell us what happened tonight?"

He told them what happened, making sure to blush when he talked about Samantha stopping the car and when he mentioned the girl who rode him. "Once I got out of the basement," Sam finished, "I called my dad and then you guys."

"Why did you call your father first?" Buttrell asked.

"I just wanted out of there," Sam said, "and I knew he was probably worried sick."

"Your account differs from Samantha Stevenson's in a few places," Mitchell said. "She says you jumped in her car and demanded she drive to that house."

Sam blinked at him. "Excuse me?"

"You jumped in her car and forced her to go to that house."

"Officer, I'm not from around here," Sam said. "We're staying in a motel. How would I know where to go?"

"She also says you attacked her. She had bruises to back her up."

"She attacked me! I have a skull fracture to back that up. It was self-defense, really. She swung the bat and I kicked her."

"She says you raped Joanna Livvy."

Sam held out his hands. "Rope burns mean anything to you?" His wrists were definitely bruised and chafed from the rope, and he was sure his ankles would look the same. "I was tied down. What does Joanna Livvy say happened?"

"She says you were swinging a knife around while you were in the basement."

"Yeah, that part's true, I was trying to get away from the freaking Satanic cult that was planning on sacrificing me and dumping my body somewhere."

"Where did you get the knife?"

"They said that Joanna would kill me when she - climaxed." Sam blushed again. "The knife was in her hand."

"All right, Mr. Winchester, I think that's enough for now," Mitchell said. He and Buttrell left.

"They don't believe me, do they," Sam muttered. Despite the phrasing, it wasn't a question. "Seven of them and one of me, and they still think I'm the bad guy."

"It'll be okay, Sam," his father soothed.

"What if they get out?" Sam asked. "What if they start this up again?"

"Then we'll have done all we could," his father answered. "Right now, there's nothing we can do."

Sam looked over at Dean, but his brother was staring determinedly at the floor. He swallowed. "So after this, where are we headed?"

"Missouri," his father answered. "There's a couple places I'd like to check out."

Sam nodded. "Can't wait to get out of here."

His dad squeezed the hand he was still holding. "I'm just glad you're okay," he said.

Which, okay, was weird, but still nice to hear. Sam smiled and squeezed back.

The sound of a slamming door broke the moment, and Sam looked up to realize Dean had left.

"He'll come around," their father whispered, stroking the back of Sam's hand with his thumb.

"I hope so," Sam said tiredly.

Dean hadn't come back by the time the doctor brought his release papers; they found him leaning against the Impala when they made their way to the parking garage. Dean got in the car without so much as looking at Sam.

 _This is why I never told you_ , he wanted to scream, but he didn't. He couldn't, not without giving away that this wasn't his first time. So he curled his legs under him, pressed the side of his head against the window, and tried not to cry as he realized he'd destroyed the relationship he'd had with his brother.

**Author's Note:**

> Added 5/21: Hey, guys! I'm currently working on two other stories in this story - one should go up soon, but I have no idea when I'll finish the other. That Glee crossover kinda drilled it into me that I should have the story finished before I start posting. Whoops. The one that'll be up soon is kind of straightforward (Dean's POV of the last two chapters), but the sequel I'm working on...let's just say I feel a bit evil and I'm not sure what form that should take.


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